280 OBITUARY X 



writer remained unknown to naturalists until after 

 the publication of the " Origin of Species." 



Darwin found in the doctrine of the selection of 

 favourable variations by natural causes, which thus 

 presented itself to his mind, not merely a probable 

 theory of the origin of the diverse species of living 

 forms, but that explanation of the phenomena of 

 adaptation, which previous speculations had utterly 

 failed to give. The process of natural selection is, 

 in fact, dependent on adaptation it is all one, 

 whether one says that the competitor which sur- 

 vives is the " fittest " or the " best adapted." And 

 it was a perfectly fair deduction that even the 

 most complicated adaptations might result from 

 the summation of a long series of simple favour- 

 able variations. 



Darwin notes as a serious defect in the first 

 sketch of his theory that he had omitted to con- 

 sider one very important problem, the solution of 

 which did not occur to him till some time after- 

 wards. " This problem is the tendency in organic 

 beings descended from the same stock to diverge 

 in character as they become modified. . . . The 

 solution, as I believe, is that the modified offspring 

 of all dominant and increasing forms tend to 

 become adapted to many and highly diversified 

 places in the economy of nature." (1. p. 84.) 



It is curious that so much importance should be 

 attached to this supplementary idea. It seems 

 obvious that the theory of the origin of species 



